I owned the 24-70 v1 for years but was always reluctant to use it. I'd only use it for event coverage. When shots really mattered, I'd have two cameras with two primes, either 35, 50, or 85 depending on the situation because I thought the 24-70 IQ was terrible.

Now, in my opinion the 24-70 v2 give prime like image quality through the range. It is very impressive.

I rarely use filters so 82mm is not an issue. I may finally pony up for a polarizer now that I have two lenses to share it between.

The latest crop of zooms from Canon are blowing me away. My collection of primes is dwindling. 135 was a casualty of the 70-200mkII. Now the 35 might be on the auction block.

I am quite shocked as to how many people actually care that Aperture isn't going to be supported anymore. I don't use Aperture, I use Lightroom on the Mac and until a few minutes ago, I didn't know anyone who used Aperture. My understanding is that Aperture hasn't seen an update in quite a while so I guess my question is, why be all upset at Apple now? If you were using Aperture and liked it, keep using it till you can't anymore then migrate.

The people like me who were holding out on Aperture were waiting for "Aperture X", i.e. a complete overhaul of the application like Final Cut Pro and Logic received. Seems that we have to change to Lightroom after all.

How is Lightroom on the Mac anyhow? From some years back I remember Adobe software being really crappy Carbon-based legacy-ware, many bugs, slow, unintuitive. Is Adobe software from today state-of-the-art 64-bit Cocoa? With good usability?

Slow, clunky and completely GPU unaware. Takes for ever to render edited images and lot of spinning beach balls. My fingers are crossed for v6. It's all we can do.

Most of my work relies on artificial light but some of my favorite portraits have come shooting midday with a well place 86" shoot-thru umbrella diffusing the harsh sun. Then you can play with the DoF all you want. Although I usually the mood I'm trying to achieve dictate the DoF.

A fun thing to do is get a light that powers down to 2-2.5ws and put on an Octo/Soft box with internal baffle and shoot shallow with a strobe.

So anyone who shoots wide open doesn't know what they're doing? I see. Thanks for sharing your vast knowledge of the ONE RIGHT WAY to take a photograph. It's wonderful that Canon has someone as knowledgable as you to advocate for them. Carry on...

No, thank you for sharing your ignorance of FASHION photography.

I'm pretty sure Victoria Secrets constitutes "fashion" photography and Russell James is huge advocate of the 85II fairly wide open. Besides it's obvious appearance, I know a guy that works at a printer in NYC and they print a lot of stuff for Russell personally and can attest (via EXIF) to the fact the guy rarely shoots over 1.8.

I try to never focus and recompose even shooting higher f-stop. That was my one main complaint of the 5DII is it was nearly impossible to not recompose. Rarely was one of the AF points Where I needed it. 5DIII this almost never an issue. It is occasionally an issue on my 1DsIII.

The 85 1.2 is sharper than 50 1.2 but I find the 50 to sharp enough to consider sharp. Way sharper than my 24-702.8 I.

I have always had great results with with the 50L. My copy was manufactured in 2010 which is after the debatable possible production change. I also AFMA to outer points, not the center, as I NEVER use the center point.

I have noticed slightly better results on my PRO bodies (1DsII and 1DsIII) than on my 5DmkII. The 5DIII might be on par with the 1DsIII

I love my 50 1.2 but realize it isn't perfect and while I am rarely disappointed with it's results, I was romanced by the promise of the Sigma Art 50. With the results of this review I am going to hold on to my beloved Canon.

I rarely miss focus with the 1.2 even wide open so I won't be wanting to deal with that shortcoming on the Sigma.

Since picking up the 70-200 II in December, I haven't touched my 135. I am refraining from selling the 135 for some sentimental reasons but mainly because it's almost not worth selling on the used market.

I'm sure I will get the bug to go shoot with it again soon especially after the newness of the 70-200 wears off.

I've never had an issue with Lexar Pro CF cards. The only failures I've had with with two Sandisk that were purchased at the same time from same retail store. So I'm kinda writing that off as a bad batch. I was able to retrieve images off each. They started throwing out error warnings on the camera and I knew to shut them down. But since I tend to trust Lexar a little more than the Sandisk.

I have tons of Finder issues with Maverick. I am constantly relaunching Finder. I had the same issues with Mountain Lion too. I'm a long time Mac user and know all the general maintenance stuff and I keep a clean system but, I'm beginning to think it is my Hybrid drive. I don't think Mac OS plays nice with them. I thought they would because of Apple's own Fusion drives but I guess they are different.

I love UPS because they are consistently awful. I know if I get the alert my package has been delivered and I haven't had a knock at my door I know to check the house at the end of my road that is #520 since my house is #620. It blows me away how often this happens. Even with stuff that says "Signature Required." Amazing!